Die without a valid Ontario will and the Succession Law Reform Act distributes your estate. It has never heard of fara'id. Here is the formula it applies, where it diverges hardest from the Islamic scheme, and the three Ontario limits on fixing it with a will.
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Part II of the Succession Law Reform Act governs, and "spouse" there means a married spouse only. The surviving spouse takes a preferential share off the top — $350,000 for deaths on or after March 1, 2021, $200,000 before that, set by regulation. If the estate is worth no more than that, the spouse takes all of it.
What is left is split by a fixed rule. Spouse and one child: half each. Spouse and two or more children: the spouse takes one third, the children share two thirds equally. No spouse: the children take everything equally, and the children of a child who died before you step into that child's share.
Parents inherit only where there is no spouse and no descendants at all — then siblings, nieces and nephews, next of kin, then the Crown. A common-law partner takes nothing. Since January 1, 2022, section 43.1 also strips a separated spouse of any intestate entitlement where the statutory test is met.
Parents are the sharpest divergence. In the Sunni schemes drawn from Qur'an 4:11 a mother and father are fixed heirs: each generally takes one sixth where there is a child, the mother one third where there is no child and no group of siblings, and the father one sixth plus the remainder where only daughters survive. Ontario gives your parents nothing while a spouse or any child is alive.
Spousal quantum runs the other way. Under Qur'an 4:12 a husband takes one half where his wife left no child and one quarter where she did; a wife takes one quarter where there is no child, one eighth where there is. Ontario's preferential share plus a third to a half of the residue hands a spouse far more — often everything, on a modest estate.
Ontario divides between children identically by sex. In fara'id, where sons and daughters inherit together as residuaries a son takes twice a daughter's portion; with no son, a sole daughter takes one half and two or more share two thirds. All four Sunni schools agree on that structure.
Two further gaps. Ontario lets a predeceased son's children take his share, while classically all four schools exclude them where another son survives — the reason several Muslim-majority states legislated an obligatory bequest, a statutory fix rather than a classical rule. And Ontario treats a legally adopted child as your own, where classical fiqh leaves provision to wasiyya.
A nikah performed in Ontario without a licence and an authorized officiant may not be a valid marriage under the Marriage Act, and marriage is the door to the intestacy scheme. Section 31 of that Act saves some good-faith cases where the couple cohabited afterwards, but the result is fact-specific. A partner who is not a married spouse may qualify as a dependant — she does not inherit.
Most estates leak. Joint property passes by survivorship; RRSP, RRIF, TFSA and insurance proceeds pass to the designated beneficiary. Neither the intestacy formula nor a will touches any of it, yet scholars generally treat the whole tarika as distributable. Section 72 of the SLRA claws many of these assets back — but only for a dependant support claim.
There is no room in the statutory scheme for a wasiyya: the one-third bequest to a masjid, a charity or a grandchild does not happen on an intestacy. It reaches property abroad unevenly. If you die domiciled in Ontario, Ontario's rules govern your movable property wherever it sits — foreign bank accounts, investments, personal property included. Land outside Ontario is governed by the law of the place it is in, whatever Ontario says.
Ontario protects testamentary freedom, and a will distributing an estate on fara'id lines is not void for that reason. In Spence v BMO Trust Co, 2016 ONCA 196, the Court of Appeal restored a will disinheriting a daughter, holding that an unconditional gift of residue is not open to public-policy attack on extrinsic evidence of the testator's motive. That is not a blank cheque — express discriminatory conditions and charitable trusts are treated differently, and no Ontario appellate court has ruled on a fara'id distribution.
The first real limit is the spousal election. Under section 6 of the Family Law Act a married surviving spouse may elect equalization of net family property instead of taking under the will, filed with the Estate Registrar for Ontario within six months of death. After a long marriage with the property in one name, equalization is often worth far more than one eighth — and the election displaces your distribution entirely.
The second is dependant support. Part V of the SLRA lets a spouse (including a common-law spouse), parent, child or sibling who was being supported, or owed support, immediately before death apply for support out of the estate, and the court can order it regardless of the will. A distribution leaving a supported adult child or an elderly parent with little is where this bites.
The third is formal validity, and it is what actually defeats wills. Ontario requires signature before two witnesses present together, who then sign in your presence; a holograph will in your own handwriting is the narrow alternative. A gift to a witness or a witness's spouse is void — and the person families ask to witness is usually an heir. A valid religious instrument is not automatically a valid Ontario will.
We draft the Ontario instrument. We do not issue religious rulings. Which relatives inherit, what fraction each takes, how the one-third wasiyya limit applies to you, and the majority Sunni rule that a bequest to a fixed heir needs the other heirs' consent — those belong with your imam, not with a law firm.
Bring us the distribution you have settled on and we will put it in language an Ontario court will apply: fractions that add to one, substitutes for anyone who predeceases you, the wasiyya third dealt with explicitly, a trustee and guardians named, and beneficiary designations reviewed against the will. A will is $563.87, taxes included; disbursements extra at cost.
Not while a spouse or any child or grandchild survives. Under Part II of the Succession Law Reform Act, parents inherit only where there is no spouse and no descendants. That is the largest single gap between Ontario's default and the Sunni schemes, where a mother and father are fixed heirs taking a share alongside your children.
It is not void simply because the shares are unequal. Spence v BMO Trust Co, 2016 ONCA 196 held that an unconditional gift of residue is not open to public-policy attack based on evidence of the testator's motive. It is not immune either: a daughter who was being supported can claim under Part V of the SLRA, and no Ontario appellate court has ruled on a fara'id distribution.
Possibly not, and that is a serious risk. The intestacy scheme applies only to a married spouse, and a nikah without a licence and an authorized officiant may not be a valid marriage under the Marriage Act. Section 31 can validate some good-faith cases, but you do not want her inheritance turning on that argument. She may qualify as a dependant — a claim she must bring, not a share she receives.
She can elect. Section 6 of the Family Law Act lets a married surviving spouse take equalization of net family property instead of taking under the will, filed with the Estate Registrar for Ontario within six months of death. If equalization is worth more than her share under your will, that is a rational choice, and it displaces what you set.
No. Ontario caps nothing — you could leave the whole estate to charity. The one-third wasiyya limit is a religious constraint you may choose to observe, with funeral expenses and debts ahead of it on the classical Sunni view. The point runs the other way: Ontario will not supply the other two thirds in fara'id shares on its own.
Open your file tonight — a licensed Ontario lawyer will confirm everything with you by tomorrow.